Ballyet, Emmanuel

, a French antiquary, was born at Marnay, in 1700, and entered the order of the barefooted Carmelites. He was afterwards promoted to be bishop of Babylon, and French consul, and during his residence in the east, acquired the esteem and confidence of the native powers, as well as of the French merchants. He published “Relation faite a Rome, 1754, a le pape Benoit XIV. du commencement, du progres, et de l’etat present de la mission de Babylone,” Fr. and Lat. Rome, 1754, 12mo, which, although often reprinted, is nowscarce. He had also a taste for the fine, arts, and formed a noble collection of medals, amounting to six thousand | three hundred pieces, of which one of his nephews printed a catalogue. Having travelled over the Christian establishments of Asia, he had an opportunity of examining the accounts of former travellers, and his observations, in the form of a journal, were deposited in the library of the duke of Orleans. From these D’Anville extracted the description of an ancient piece of sculpture, which he inserted in vol. XVII. of the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions. Ballyet died of the plague, at Bagdad, in 1773. ¹